DIY (Doing It Yahweh)

Posted by Christian St John in Faithblogs | 0 comments

Last evening I installed some new bookcases, you know, the kind you get from IKEA that have to be fully assembled, with lots of bruised fingers and thumbs and a few cuss words thrown in for fun! I had just finished the job when I realized that I had wrongly assembled the tops of the bookcases – I had screwed them together with all the screw heads showing on the top two shelves, they should have been the other up way so that the screws were out of sight.

I toyed for a few moments with options. Option 1 – Hide the screw heads and holes that were showing by covering them with books. Option 2 – Cover the holes with a white filler. Option 3 – Take the bookcases apart and do the job right. So, I did what any good workman would do and took the bookcases apart and put the top shelves the right way up (as per the instructions – men don’t do instructions).

Was it a pain having to right my wrong? Clue: Yes! But now when I look at the book cases I won’t have that little voice in the back of my head saying, “Could have done better.” It may have been annoying that I had to spend more time unscrewing the wall brackets, taking the tops off, and so on, to rectify my mistake, but within twenty minutes the job was finished to the best of my abilities.

Sometimes we believers are guilty of leaving jobs half done. We fail to read the instructions (the Bible) and we mess things up. And sometimes we are left with several choices as to what to do. But in every situation, although there may be choices, there is usually only one right choice – to fix what we have messed up or broken. It’s not always the easy choice, in fact it’s probably the hardest choice, but when we decide to own up and confess how we have gone, or done wrong, we will know true peace. Sure, there may be consequences to our actions (mine was having to spend extra time fixing my mistake) but when all is said and done there is such satisfaction in a job well done.

Maybe I should have read the instructions instead of just going ahead and thinking I knew best, but thank the Lord that even in the minor situation of my bookcases he can teach us so much.

Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
March, 2009

Picture by Marcelo Gerpe